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History and situation

I have been developing Access databases for my employer for some time. Initially my work PC (Windows 7) had Office XP installed so my first databases were developed in Access 2002-2003 file format. Later on Office 2013 was installed on my machine and this prevented me from properly editing and compiling databases as it would just crash with a 'missing .dll' error on startup. To remedy this I was provided an old Windows XP machine that still had office XP installed and I could use this when I needed to perform maintenance or modifications on my older products (the .mde files still run fine in new versions of Office once modified and compiled).

Unfortunately the Windows XP machine has now suffered terminal hardware failure. To try and get my maintenance capabilities back I've been provided with a more powerful PC (still Windows 7) and have set up a Windows 7 VM using VirtualBox with only Office XP installed to try and emulate my old work PC before Office 2013 was installed on it.

The Problem

When attempting to open a 2002-2003 format database (.mdb) on my Virtual Machine I'm getting the dreaded 'missing .dll' errors again. The database will display an error then Access will completely freeze. Even opening a database and holding down the Shift key will only allow me to get the file open. If I try to open the VBA IDE the error will present itself then and Access will freeze.

additional note: I've discovered it's not always APSBrowsePanes.dll that seems to be missing. Another database gets the same error but claims the missing reference is to MSOUTL.OLB

A search on Google for similar problems suggested repairing the Office installation, I have tried this with no effect. Using the 'Compact and Repair Database' option within Access after opening a database with the Shift key held down doesn't help either, it just shows a message saying the database has become corrupted after the repair and any time that code would normally be executed.

How can I fix this issue or is there some other option for editing and compiling a 2002-2003 format database?

Erik A
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Aiken
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  • Is `AWSBrowsePanes.dll` a typo, or was it built in your company? If the latter, try to locate it on the old PCs harddisk (if that still works). – Andre Oct 04 '16 at 13:55
  • @Andre Looks like this was a typo, I've amended the question title. It wasn't something we created within the company, looking [here](http://www.solvusoft.com/en/files/missing-not-found-error/dll/windows/roxio-inc/roxio-easy-media-creator-7/apsbrowsepanes-dll/) it seems like this is associated with some other software that may have been on the old Windows XP machine. No idea why Access would be using it. – Aiken Oct 06 '16 at 08:18

1 Answers1

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Your problem seems to be a combination of database corruption and broken references.

You need to get your database to a state where you can open the VBA Editor, open the References dialog and remove everything that may cause problems.

See http://allenbrowne.com/ser-38.html and http://www.accessmvp.com/djsteele/AccessReferenceErrors.html for information about references.

To do that, I suggest these steps on your Office XP VM:

  1. Decompile the database, following steps 1 to 6 to the letter.

  2. If that doesn't help, try importing all objects into a new database, see http://allenbrowne.com/ser-47.html (under "Symptom: Cannot open a form or report").

When you are able to delete the broken references, you may have to change some code from early binding to late binding, see How to refer to Excel objects in Access VBA? or Preventing Excel VBA compile errors due to users having an older version of MS Office (MS Outlook) installed?

Community
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Andre
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